Lehighton Area School District will hold a groundbreaking for its new primary/elementary center on Oct. 31 at 5 p.m.

The event will be held at the site of the future school, just off Mahoning Street at the entrance to the Lehighton Area High School.Lehighton’s school board approved four prime contracts, totaling $33.04 million, for the construction of the center, which will house all K-5 students in the district.The contracts approved included Lobar Inc., general contractor, $23,448,900; JBM Mechanical, mechanical contract, $3,897,000; Jay R. Reynolds, plumbing contract, $1,692,700; and Phillips Brothers, electrical contract, $4,009,200.Lehighton plans on closing its four current elementary schools: Franklin, Shull-David, East Penn and Mahoning.The existing elementary schools were all built in the 1950s.The 162,000-square-foot building would be set up with the K-2 primary classrooms on one end of the building and the 3-5 elementary classrooms on the other side. Core areas would be centrally located.The gymnasium, stage and cafeteria would be back-to-back-to-back in the school.Top tier seating in the gymnasium could be walled off to become two large group instruction rooms, which would seat around 100 students.District officials said the consolidation would save Lehighton around $1.2 million per year, mostly through staff attrition.“There are things we pay for per building, like utilities, that would go away if we move to one building,” Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver said during a board meeting when the project was pitched. “Our fiber Internet lines are run from the main campus where the administration building and high school are to each of the four elementary schools. Now, we would run one line about 300 yards. Those are the kind of savings we looked at.”The new center, he added, would also have many educational benefits.“It would allow us to average around 18-20 students in our kindergarten classes,” he said.“Right now, our numbers are all over the place in our four schools. I think that is in the best educational interest of our students.”Residents opposing the project said they fear taxes will go up significantly as a result of the new school and favor renovating the existing projects.Lehighton’s business manager, Brian Feick, said the project will not negatively impact the district’s current debt service.